Daily Comment on News and Issues of Interest to Michigan Lawyers

04/22/2013

Texas Gets Tough On Prosecutors: Updated

For my money, the most riveting legal story of 2012 was this Texas Monthly story, “The Innocent Man.” David Brooks would go further. He named it one of his best magazine essays of the year:

On Aug. 13, 1986, Michael Morton returned from work to discover his wife
murdered in their bed. He had no motive and no history of violence. He
passed two lie detector tests. The couple’s 3-year-old son witnessed the
murder and gave a relative a detailed description, explicitly saying
that his father was not involved.

Yet prosecutors decided Morton was the killer. He was convicted, and he
spent nearly the next quarter-century in prison. If you start reading “The Innocent Man,”
a two-part series on this case that Pamela Colloff wrote for The Texas
Monthly, you will be propelled along by indignation at the arrogance and
stupidity of the entire law enforcement system. You’ll be thankful
again for the Innocence Project, which uses DNA evidence to clear the wrongfully convicted.

The magnitude of the prosecutorial errors and their consequences (read the Texas Monthly piece from beginning to end) has sparked an unprecedented response in Texas. A bill passed unanimously last month by the Texas Senate would extend the statute of limitations for offenses involving the
suppression of evidence by prosecutors from four years after the occurrence of the offenses to four years after a wrongfully
convicted defendant is released from prison. It also would require the
State Bar of Texas to issue a public reprimand for prosecutors who
suppress evidence that they should have given to defense attorneys. The bill passed the Senate unanimously. Other measures to increase prosecutorial accountability are also under consideration.

But an even more dramatic sign that Texas is taking prosecutorial accountability seriously occurred on Friday, when a special prosecutor at a rare court of inquiry found that the prosecutor in the Morton case, Ken Anderson, was likely guilty of criminal contempt of court, tampering with evidence, and tampering with government records -- and ordered his arrest. Anderson, now a sitting circuit judge who has been suspended pending the outcome of the charges, surrendered at his own courthouse. Anderson also faces ethics charges from the State Bar of Texas.

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For my money, the most riveting legal story of 2012 was this Texas Monthly story, “The Innocent Man.” David Brooks would go further. He named it one of his best magazine essays of the year:

On Aug. 13, 1986, Michael Morton returned from work to discover his wife
murdered in their bed. He had no motive and no history of violence. He
passed two lie detector tests. The couple’s 3-year-old son witnessed the
murder and gave a relative a detailed description, explicitly saying
that his father was not involved.

Yet prosecutors decided Morton was the killer. He was convicted, and he
spent nearly the next quarter-century in prison. If you start reading “The Innocent Man,”
a two-part series on this case that Pamela Colloff wrote for The Texas
Monthly, you will be propelled along by indignation at the arrogance and
stupidity of the entire law enforcement system. You’ll be thankful
again for the Innocence Project, which uses DNA evidence to clear the wrongfully convicted.

The magnitude of the prosecutorial errors and their consequences (read the Texas Monthly piece from beginning to end) has sparked an unprecedented response in Texas. A bill passed unanimously last month by the Texas Senate would extend the statute of limitations for offenses involving the
suppression of evidence by prosecutors from four years after the occurrence of the offenses to four years after a wrongfully
convicted defendant is released from prison. It also would require the
State Bar of Texas to issue a public reprimand for prosecutors who
suppress evidence that they should have given to defense attorneys. The bill passed the Senate unanimously. Other measures to increase prosecutorial accountability are also under consideration.

But an even more dramatic sign that Texas is taking prosecutorial accountability seriously occurred on Friday, when a special prosecutor at a rare court of inquiry found that the prosecutor in the Morton case, Ken Anderson, was likely guilty of criminal contempt of court, tampering with evidence, and tampering with government records -- and ordered his arrest. Anderson, now a sitting circuit judge who has been suspended pending the outcome of the charges, surrendered at his own courthouse. Anderson also faces ethics charges from the State Bar of Texas.